I will have a press release early next week on the issue, but as kind of a teaser for those of you who don’t know my position, here is one thought.
Look at public comments and what public officials are saying, like Naperville City Council member Richard Furstenau, who at one meeting this week said, “Quite frankly, the one thing that we can’t do, and that I don’t think we have the resources for - and I don’t know if the state even has the resources anymore - is to take care of these roads.”
Why is mass transit not seriously looked at as a major part of the solution? I’ve offered an example before of an American city of 100,000 that is tremendously successful in their mass transit operation. They have 60% of their residents carrying bus passes, and no longer build new roads or expand them. The Washington and 75th Street expansion will cost around $15 million for one intersection. That’s multiples of what we spend on busing in Naperville. And to those fiscal doubters, yes, federal funding for new mass transit is available in the millions for those interested enough to pursue it. It’s not about costs - it’s about thinking in a new way. If we have too many cars, then we need to find ways for people to go where they want to go using their cars less. It’s about reducing traffic, not paving over your home to add more traffic. This is for people using cars too - less traffic also makes them happier.
Kudos to the Naperville City Council and Transportation Advisory Board for having an open discussion on transit philosophy recently, and to Council member John Rosanova who said: “I would like to hear from the community…before we move forward.” The community, including civic and business groups, is the right place to start solving the problem. Now they need to focus on mass transit. Otherwise, as Councilman Jim Boyajian said a few months back, “Folks, the problems are with us today, they’re going to be with us tomorrow, and they’ll be staying with us for the foreseeable future.” We can solve the problem, or we can keep kicking it down the road. I want transportation solutions. You solve traffic congestion with mass transit.
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